Company hired to repair water main

The company responsible for maintaining a water main that broke this week, carving a gully into a Ventura County hillside, is hiring a contractor to shore up the slope and fix the 10-inch pipe, a spokesman said Tuesday.

About 625 customers in the vicinity of Old Coach Drive, north of Camarillo, will have sporadically weaker or stronger water flow for the next two or three weeks until the pipeline is repaired, said Brian Barreto, a spokesman for California American Water Co.

The cause of the break was still unknown, he said. Water started gushing about 11 a.m. Monday and, over the course of two hours, ate a chasm in the hillside more than 50 feet deep and wide.

Barreto said a contractor will first fill in the gulch with dirt, then fix the pipeline.

No homes were damaged, but Peter Kudlinki's mother's property was eaten away, causing part of her deck to hang in the void. He said it will likely have to be completely replaced. "Who needs the headache?" he asked.